Once I had a good friend who called himself Captain Fathom. He said I was his best friend. He asked me to publish his memoirs. He paid for the printing and kept all the profits.…
Posts published in “Essays”
The first half of the German seventeenth century was a time and place of short men with well-tended facial hair. The prevailing style dictated long, groomed mustaches and goatees tucked against starched ruffs that rode…
A stern visage, the picture of 19th century rectitude, used to look down on passersby from a banner at the corner of McAllister and Larkin, fin de siècle San Francisco. The banner celebrated the adjacent…
One thing going on in Boonville is the contest at the November 7 election for judge of the Anderson Justice Court between Homer W. Mannix, incumbent, who wears several other official hats in the small…
You wrote so engagingly about my cousin Rusty Norvell in the AVA after he died in a car wreck that I'm moved to round out the picture. His neck was broken; his car intertwined with…
Fort Lawton doesn't exist anymore – not as an Army base and not in historic memory, unless you come across “On American Soil” by Jack Hamann (University of Washington Press, 2007). In 1944, 43 Black…
It’s been a rough and hectic couple weeks around here since the Dreaded Election Outcome. I spent a lot of time going to and from SFO, where I waved goodbye to friends upset with the…